COUNCIL Year-End Reports on the April 19 Agenda

Report of the Bookstore, 1999-2000

Contents

This report has seven substantive sections. These comment on the organizational
background to the Committee's work, the Bookstore's merchandising of texts,
beginning-of-term logistics, merchandising of non-text books, the Bookstore's
provision of miscellaneous other products and services, the Bookstore's
impact on local independent bookstores, and the viability of alternative
channels for providing texts. A summary concludes. The Committee also spent
some time this year on an ad hoc matter, and that is reported and its actions
and findings are reported in an Addendum.

1. Organizational background

The Bookstore is operated, in a facility owned by the University, by
the College Division of Barnes & Noble under contract to the University.
Within the University administration, Business Services oversees the execution
of the contract and is responsible, more broadly, for overseeing Barnes
& Noble's performance. The University Council represents many constituencies
in the University and has chosen to have a standing committee
on the Bookstore. The relationship between the Bookstore Committee and Business
Services is unclear. Business Services seems to take the view that the Committee
is there to help Business Services and, indeed, seems to view this in a
rather restrictive way. It was difficult, for example, to learn the details
of contractual terms germane to the substance of this report; and, having
provided the Committee chair a confidential review of terms specifically
requested, Business Services offered only that these terms might be paraphrased
and this only if the paraphrase were approved in advance. Two of the terms
of interest concern the merchandising policies and the faculty discount
policy Barnes & Noble in fact committed to. Business Services says there
is a confidentiality clause in the contract, but this is clearly not an
insuperable obstacle. It would be useful to clarify what the underlying
relationship is as a context for further work on these and any other matters
that may seem important to Council.

2. The Bookstore's merchandising of texts

There are ongoing problems concerning the timely provision of texts
by the Bookstore. These are the fault of the Faculty and not of the Bookstore
management. There is no hope of timely physical provision of texts unless
the orders are received in a timely fashion, and many of the text orders
simply do not reach the Bookstore soon enough. Exhortations to date do not
seem to be solving this problem. The Committee wonders whether some sort
of financial incentive to the Departments offering courses along the lines
used by Wharton Reprographics for bulkpack submission--Reprographics passes
on the peak-load costs it would otherwise incur in exchange for being able
to avoid them--might be helpful, though it is not clear in this case where
the money would come from. Alternatively, perhaps the exhortations should
be passed on via Department chairs (who may have more influence over faculty
behavior than the administrators who currently relay the requests).

3. Beginning-of-term logistics

The news on getting texts which are on the shelves into students' hands
is, in contrast, good. There had been significant problems in past years
with long lines and delays at the check-out registers just before and during
the first week of term. Extensive spot-checks in January suggest that the
Bookstore now has this under control.

4. Merchandising of non-text books

The Bookstore's merchandising of non-text books is a much more vexed
problem. The Committee took as a given the amount of floor- and shelfspace
allocated to this. The questions we focused on concerned the allocation
of that space across broad subject categories, the selection of titles within
the categories, the organization of the books within the categories, and
the state of order of books on the shelves.

We investigated six categories in detail. These were European history,
American history, sociology and political science, art and landscape architecture,
and engineering. The set includes the largest categories and also some specialist
ones. Volunteer investigators from the faculty and Van Pelt professional
staff were asked to assess the selection (what was there, what was not)
and the ease with which a customer would be able to locate a book which
was in fact in stock.

An edited and consolidated version of the reports will be submitted
as background to the Council chair. In general, the Committee and the investigators
had the impression from publicity at the time of the announcement of the
Barnes & Noble contract and at the time of the opening of the new store
that the standard of merchandising would be that of a first-class academic
bookstore. The reports indicate fairly consistent disappointment relative
to this standard on four main dimensions.

The relative allocation of space to broad topic categories and the physical
contiguities of the spaces in question are sometimes problematic. The Bookstore
management has indicated a desire to improve this and has offered to share
sales data (by space in category) in aid of a cooperative approach. This
is promising but the task--remaining for next year--is substantial.

The selection of books within categories is the heart of the problem.
The charitable interpretation of the reports is that the Barnes & Noble
buyers and the individuals in the store with power to buy are not receiving
the information required to stock the shelves as we understood they would
be stocked. The problem does not appear to be the absence of specific titles
so much as the absence of institutions to make routine the flow of this
sort of information. We have several suggestions, though we want to emphasize
in all cases that the responsibility for proper stocking clearly ultimately
rests with Barnes & Noble. The University Library employs a staff of
bibliographers whose job it is to monitor new offerings and select which
books the University should buy. It would be desirable to routinize contact
between the bibliographers and those who do the Bookstore's buying in the
relevant categories. University faculty members are also often aware of
new titles; and if it were easier to convey their ideas to the Bookstore
staff, we believe more suggestions would flow. The Bookstore has a website,
and it would be desirable (and apparently not difficult) to modify the website
design to create a swift and reliable channel for such suggestions. Finally,
we wonder whether it would be possible to get the Library's Franklin software
to generate lists of new acquisitions by broad subject categories. Once
generated, such lists could be made available at essentially zero marginal
cost to all concerned bookstores and, for that matter, to interested parties
in the broader University community. There seems to be good will on all
sides to explore these possibilities over the coming year.

The problems with subcategories are twofold. Sometimes the subcategories
do not seem as helpful as they might be, and many books the Bookstore stocks
do not fit into one specific category in any simple way. The latter at least
would not be a problem with an electronic shelflist and a search engine,
given the general facility members of the University community increasingly
have in using these. These resources exist: the Bookstore staff use (very
full) versions of them to answer questions. Access to some version of such
resources, if the shelflist also gave shelf locations, would also make it
easier to find books without consulting the Bookstore staff. Indeed, on-line
access to such capabilities would help potential customers figure out whether
a trip to the Bookstore would be useful. It is not current Barnes &
Noble policy to make use of their terminals available to the customers,
never mind to offer on-line access to the shelflist; and the local management
seems to be powerless to change this. We have the impression that an official
expression of interest to Barnes & Noble in having Barnes & Noble
develop these capabilities might be helpful.

Finally, the books were also often observed to be out of order. This
is a simpler problem and merely requires more frequent review and reshelving
than happens at present. Again, management is amenable.

5. The Bookstore's provision of miscellaneous other products and services

We did not devote systematic attention this year to the Bookstore's
provision of Miscellaneous other products and services but did look into
photographic services. In the old store and in the beginning in the new
one, there was an area in which photo services such as processing and the
sale of film, cameras and accessories were offered. It usually seemed busy
and the prices were superior to alternative local offerings. The area has
disappeared and been replaced by a drop-off and pick-up film service staffed
by not particularly knowledgeable cashiers. We have had discussions with
the Bookstore management who have undertaken to report back as to why the
level of service was cut back and to seek staff training from Kodak (the
film processor) or other sources.

6. The Bookstore's impact on local independent bookstores

The Committee did not spend time this year investigating the impact
of the new Bookstore arrangements on the local independent bookstores. It
seemed to us that the main threat to the old equilibrium would be radically
changed Bookstore merchandising. We do not think such change has occurred
to date, but this is merely an impression and the Committee should take
more careful soundings next year. We also note that the financial health
of the independent stores may well be very sensitive to their ability to
retain their current text trade. The University should be very cautious
about mandating changes, such as those proposed by the Bookstore manager
several years ago, which might undermine this without careful study.

7. Viability of alternative channels for providing texts

Questions have been raised as to whether University students should
obtain their texts from on-line distributors instead of from physical bookstores,
in particular from the University Bookstore. We did not have time to investigate
this in detail but can offer several general observations. There is evidence
to suggest that carrying the textbooks is profitable and offers revenue
streams which are useful in cross-subsidizing less financially attractive
uses of store space which are, nonetheless, good for the community (e.g.
shelves with more specialized academic books). Barnes & Noble is a very
large customer of the textbook publishers and presumably can exploit this
to assure supply. Finally, the Bookstore can and does facilitate a broad
second-hand market in texts (many of which have become very expensive in
recent years) given that it sells textbooks on a regular basis. Providing
textbooks from a bricks-and-mortar store is inevitably more expensive than
providing them directly from warehouses; but there may be offsetting advantages.
Again, this is a question which requires detailed study (assuming, of course,
that the contract does not already commit the University to one particular
answer.)

8. Summary

The new facility is in itself a tremendous improvement, but the ultimate
quality of the Bookstore will depend upon objectives and execution. Good
will seems to exist on all sides, but good will alone may not be enough.
Our investigations took place well into the second academic year in the
new facility. We felt we observed some real deficiencies and concluded that
some structural changes in how certain specific tasks and activities are
carried out are in order. It is very clear that ongoing diplomacy, operations-oriented
interaction with the Bookstore management and staff, and general oversight
are in order.

--Daniel Raff, Chair

Addendum

The Committee received a request from a member of the University community
to restrict the availability of sexually explicit materials in the Bookstore.
The Committee considered the request, consulted with members of the faculty
with relevant expertise and with the chair of the Committee on Open Expression,
and concluded that it was not appropriate to pursue the recommendation.
Complete background materials submitted by the community members who spoke
with the Committee, minutes of the meetings in which they spoke, and the
memorandum giving the Committee's reasoning and detailed conclusions are
on file in the Office of the Secretary.